Pedal Notes

As trumpet players we normally learn that ‘bottom c’ is the lowest note in the open position on the harmonic series. It is however the second partial. Pedal ‘c’ is the lowest. Interestingly there is a lot of mystery about this note, how it should be played, which fingering to use etc.

If you find it hard to play the low notes on a trumpet (those notes between bottom c and low f#) with ease and at any dynamic, and if you also find it hard to tongue these notes clearly, then this is mainly caused by over tight lip tension, especially the actual vibrating part of the lips. An easy way to correct this is to learn to relax your lips. Playing pedal c is a very good way of learning to relax the lips and thereby allows them to vibrate in a better way.

Pedal c will at first feel very hard to play. Do not force the note out. Otherwise you are simply defeating the object of the exercise. One of the best ways to learn to play pedal c is to play a bottom ‘a’ on 1+2 then drop the note an octave but play this note on open. This note will sound a pedal ‘a’, in fact you are playing a very flat pedal c, so flat that it is actually and a. This will be easier than to try for the c straight away, which will more often than not sound really flat in pitch. Once you have learnt to play a good ‘pedal a’ on open try to move the pitch up gradually using a very slow glissando up to Bb and then b the finally pedal c. When you lose the vibrations start again from that open position on the pedal a. Learn to agree with the trumpet and thus make improvements rather than fighting it.

The best way to improve something is to always practice something which you can either already play, or something which you find very easy to do. It is not good practice to ‘try’ and play notes you simply can’t play. Always work from something you can do to something you can’t, rather than something you can’t do to something else you can’t do!

Once you can play pedal c correctly then you can work at playing the rest of the pedal notes on the correct fingerings: b on 2, Bb on 1, a on 1+2 and continue down to pedal f# on 1+2+3. What you will find by learning to play these notes correctly is that your high range will improve not because playing low helps directly but because you are improving your lip vibrations and using airspeed more to play these notes. Practice linking your register from pedal c up the range of the instrument. There is a really useful video on you tube which I strongly recommend that you watch in order to understand better the use of pedals.

Pedal Notes Video

Legende

Check out my latest recording of Enesco's Legende, the piece is a firm favourite in the trumpet players repertoire!

Legende (1906) is a solo work for trumpet and piano, composed by Georges Enesco. It reflects the impressionistic style of Enesco's teachers Jules Massenet and Gabriel Faure. The title is a homage to Merri Franquin (professor of cornet at the Paris Conservatoire), the trumpeter who it was written for. The piece reflects an important evolution in the development of the trumpet, from a more archaic limited  instrument, to a fully chromatic and soloist instrument.   

Legende - Performed by John Campbell

Recording of Meltemi - Composed by Esther Hopkins

Check out my recording of Esther Hopkins' new unaccompanied trumpet work, 'Meltemi'. It's a clever composition, idiomatic for the trumpet and the 4 minute length makes it a perfect opening for a trumpet recital.

The music is inspired by Greek winds, with each of the three movements reflecting different types of wind. The first movement, and name of the work, Meltemi, is a type of wind that blows the sand around in Greece in the summer and churns up the sea. The second movement, Zephyr, is a soft gentle breeze, light and humorous in nature. The final movement, Gregale, is a strong northerly wind. 

Click the link below to direct you to the recording page on my website.

Meltemi

The Importance of Good Breathing

Air is the most important factor in creating sound on a trumpet. Which is more important: breathing in or blowing through the trumpet? The answer is that they are both equally important. The way in which we breathe in will affect the sound in which we play. We should always be striving to be more efficient about the way we play and never waste our effort. Tension or tightness in our bodies is a prime example of wasting energy. We can minimise wasted energy by simply being aware of it, but more importantly by positively playing in a relaxed and focused way. We start this process by the way in which we breathe in.

First off all we should nearly always breathe in through the mouth (rather than the nose). It is the most efficient and natural way to breathe in a large amount of air quickly. We form the embouchure with the mouthpiece then breathe in through the sides of the lips.    

Exhaling all the way out before breathing in can help us to breathe in. The most natural thing after exhaling all of the way out is to breathe in; when you breathe in open your throat so that the air is drawn in a relaxed manner. The air can be drawn in either quickly or more slowly as is appropriate.

Always take the biggest breath. Not so that we have more air to play a longer phrase, but because the air pressure is higher and so wants to come out! Our lungs only half full of air means we will have to work harder to maintain the same pressure and that is obviously more demanding. This is even more important as we play higher notes.

Time it so that after the air has been drawn in there is no delay before playing. Holding the breath, even momentarily, can create tension, fear and doubt, and interrupts the natural flow of playing and the music.

As the air is expelled while playing it should likened to a controlled sigh. Pitch the notes with your airspeed. Always let your air flow smoothly through the vibrating lips.  

How fast can you tongue?

Tonguing is a very good thing to improve, as we use it all the time. A player with good articulation will enable them to play pieces previously impossible or awkward. Practice with the metronome set it at a speed just below one where you find it impossible to repeat 16 semi-quavers without slowing down. Increase this everyday by 2 metronome markings and see the progress. Your long term goal should be to tongue semi-quavers at 126-140bpm. Whenever practising it is it is always nice to see that you are improving on a day to day basis. In order to monitor your progress, set yourself small and specific targets. You will learn more about your playing doing this. If you possess Clarke’s technical studies (which every trumpeter should do!) try to single tongue the exercises, (once you can play them slurred) again monitor your progress with the metronome. If you do not have a copy of the technical studies, practice tonguing quietly low chromatics (below bottom ‘c’). Don’t be despondent, most players find this hard, normally because it is neglected a lot. Tonguing low notes fast and quietly will help with your general production.

Whenever tonguing it is crucial that you keep the air flowing through the lips, make sure that the tongue does not interfere too much with airstream. Strike the tongue against the top teeth or just above them if you are playing higher in pitch. Tonguing exercises might make you tense up, always try to relax. Make faster tonguing ‘easier’ tonguing. There should be hardly any difference with the amount of air you use for tonguing compared to a playing one long note. Make sure you never starve your instrument of air. 

Relaxed Concentration

Trumpet playing can be a very stressful thing, playing on an instrument which seems to want to embarrass us in front of the audience. Whenever we play, it is quite alarming how tense we can get, all of that tension never helps us play anywhere near our full potential. I’m not talking about tension of the lips but of the mind and the body. When we play the trumpet we unnecessarily worry about whether we can play the high note, or if we have enough stamina or we sometimes just get tense while sight reading. It is useful to sometimes understand why we are tense; ask yourself is it because you know you can’t really play the piece? Or maybe it’s because you’re thinking negatively and worry about something that is not important. We normally get tense when we are out of our comfort zones, sometimes we don’t even realise that we are tense because for some people it is the normal state of being while playing. This is not good for our playing and we have to take positive action to bring us into a state of relaxed concentration.

Focus on Your Breathing

Breathing slowly is something that always relaxes a person. We must try to think of blowing out into the trumpet as a controlled sigh. When you are playing a solo, or any piece for that matter, it is very important to know where and how you are to breathe, and vitally, to stick to it. So many times you see players make mistakes because they let their breathing control them, rather than controlling their breathing, it’s so easy to put it right. When playing a high and loud passage, make sure that your focus is only on the lungs pushing that air fast out through the lips, otherwise you will be wasting energy. Stay cool, and relax!

Do, Don’t Try!

Don’t try to play notes but simply play them. We don’t try to do things we know we can do, we don’t try to walk, we just do it. Is your playing not as fluid to you as walking, if not then you need to feel more comfortable with your trumpet. It needs to feel like it’s your best friend. Friends spend lots of time together learning about each other, this is what you should do with your instrument, learn how it responds to you. When you are performing and you feel tense, play the same way as you do in your practice room. The practice room is where you should learn how to relax.

Take Control

When things seem to be going wrong things are always magnified up in our heads. Making mistakes is part of being human. Don’t worry about them, and crucially don’t let them make you make more mistakes. When we concentrate on playing x, y and z correctly we forget about the importance of conveying the emotions of music. Ironically when we focus on telling that musical story we seem to make fewer mistakes. We have given our brains something positive to do. 

Link for Mouthpiece Diagrams and more Information

Below is a link for more information and diagrams's on mouthpieces. It is a link to a Vincent Bach Website, I chose this website not particularly because I think that Bach is the best, but rather because it is well presented and informative.

http://www.bachbrass.com/pdf/AV6001%20Bach%20Mpce%20Manual.pdf